A Month of Blogs - How to Make Strawberry Shortcake

How to Make Strawberry Shortcake

Suggested by Susan V.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)

I promised this recipe to Susan three or four months back, and is standard for someone with short-term memory loss, promptly forgot about it. She very gently reminded me when I was looking for suggestions of topics for the October 31-day blogging challenge, so I promised I would make it my first post.

Sorry there are no pictures - strawberries aren't in season right now, although if I make the cake itself soon I'll put a photo up.

Also, a note - I tend to measure in cups. Buying a set of measuring cups is probably your best bet if you want to make any of my recipes - you can get a set from any cheap kitchen store or supermarket for a couple pounds / dollars - but if you're really too cheap and or lazy to do that, an American cup is about 2/3 of a standard British mug, or 1 1/2 times a British teacup. This recipe, as with most of the ones I use, works pretty well even if your measurements aren't exact.

The basic structure of the cake - eggs, flour, butter, sugar - comes from the 1963 edition of McCalls Cookbook, published by Random House. The flavourings are my blend.


Ingredients:

For the cake:

~ 3 cups sifted flour. In the US I use cake flour; in the UK I use half plain and half self-raising.

~ 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder. Not soda. Powder. Don't accidentally use tablespoons the way my mom did once.

~ 1 teaspoon salt.

~ 3/4 cup butter. You can use vegetable spread if you insist, although I'm a fan of butter for cakes. It's not as crucial as it would be in a finer cake though.

~ 1 1/2 cups sugar. I used to use half white and half demarara, which is nice. Now I use all unrefined since that's the only kind we buy. It's still nice. A bit less sweet.

~ 3 eggs. BUY FREE RANGE! Nothing to do with how well the recipe works, just that you should do that.

~ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1/4 teaspoon crushed vanilla pod. Do not buy anything that says "vanilla flavouring". Vanilla flavouring has no vanilla in at all. And it tastes rank.

~ 1 teaspoon almond essence. I leave this out sometimes, since my brother's allergic, but it adds a nice taste.

~ 1/2 tablespoon crushed edible lavender or 2 tablespoons lavender sugar. You can add a bit more of this if you want, but if you do, scale back a bit on the normal sugar.

~ 1 cup milk. We use semi-skimmed. I've never tried to make it with other kinds of milk, although I suppose it would work well enough. If you try, let me know how it works out.


For the topping:

~ Strawberries.

~ Vanilla ice cream (optional).

~ Whippy (aerosol) cream or pouring cream (double or single, doesn't matter).


Equipment:

~ 2 mixing bowls. At least one needs to be large-ish (14-inch diameter or larger).

~ Measuring cups and spoons.

~ Sieve.

~ Rubber spatula. Plastic works, but rubber is best. If you're not sure, get your partner to spank you with it. If it stings, it's rubbery enough. Also, when I say "spatula" I don't mean one of those lifter things with holes that some people call spatulas - I mean one of these. (They're not usually that expensive.)

~ Wooden spoon (not mandatory, but it helps).

~ Cooling rack.

~ Sharp knife.

~ Electric mixer. You CAN do it with a french whisk and wooden spoon and a heck of a lot of bicep strength (and if you do, please send me a photo), but I'd recommend the mixer.

~ Cake tin. I use a round one, although a loaf tin would probably work (although I'm not sure how you'd adjust the cooking time). If you're going for a round tin, I recommend a 7-inch diameter. (Women will most likely know what this means. Men: if you don't know, look at your round tins - or the ones in the shop - and select the one that you think is seven inches. Then choose the next size up. This is actually seven inches.) The most important thing is that it needs to be deep - at least three inches deep, four would be better.

This recipe does not work well as a layer cake.


Method:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 - 375 F / 180 - 190 C / Gas Mark 4 1/2 - 5.

2) Grease your baking tin liberally. I know a lot of people grease with oil and flour, but I find that a fairly gross method - I use butter or vegetable spread on a piece of kitchen towel and rub it all over the bottom and sides of the tin. Make sure you use quite a bit - a tablespoon, maybe a little more.

3) In your smaller bowl (if they're two different sizes), sift your flour along with your baking powder and salt. Set this to one side.

4) In your larger bowl (if you have one), use your electric mixer / superior bicep strength to beat your eggs until fluffy, then add butter, sugar, vanilla, almond and lavender. Beginners' tip: if you're having trouble measuring out your butter, fill a measuring cup 1/4 full of water, then add butter until the water's just about to overflow. I find this easier than trying to measure out a full 3/4 cup of butter, since the butter inevitably doesn't want to fill the cup without leaving empty spaces. Just make sure you don't have butter sticking over the top of the cup if you use this method.

5) At a low speed on the mixer, beat your flour mixture (in fourths) and milk (in thirds) into your butter-egg-sugar medley, beginning and ending with the flour mix. I know some people just chuck it all in together, and I suppose this might work, but I like to do it in bits because I KNOW that way works. And I'm a creature of habit, gosh darn it. You may want to use your wooden spoon to fold the batter together a few times when you add the flour mixture, so the flour doesn't all fly into the air and up your nose.

6) Pour your batter into your cake tin, using the spatula to get the last of the batter off the sides. I advise against licking the bowl - I know parents have been letting their kids eat the scrapings of raw cake batter since time immemorial, but I'm not someone who thinks salmonella is something to screw around with. That said, I have to be super-careful due to my lack of immune system, so YMMV. I know my mom eats cake batter and hasn't contracted any awful diseases yet. That we know of. Smooth the cake as much as you can on the top. It won't be totally smooth, since it's fairly viscous, but do your best.

7) Bake. The book says 30 to 35 minutes, which is a load of crap. It'll probably take an hour and a quarter. You can check it after 45 if you really must, but bear in mind that the more you check the more likely it is to sink. When it's brown on the top, check that it's cooked by poking a sharp knife in the center. If it comes out clean, it's ready. If your knife has any gooiness on it, try again in 15 minutes.

NOTE: People cooking with a fan-assisted oven, or at a high altitude, will need to adjust cooking times. I don't have a fan-assisted oven or live in the mountains, so I don't know exactly what the adjustments are, and you'll have to play around. Generally fan-assisted ovens cook things more quickly, so I'd advise checking the first time after 30 minutes if you're using one. If you're at a high altitude, it may take longer to cook. There's a formula for it (or at least for water, which boils at 1 degree F lower for every 500 feet above sea level) but I think trial and error is your best option.

8) When your knife comes out clean, let the cake rest in its pan on a cooling rack for 12 or 15 minutes.

9) After 12 or 15 minutes, run your knife around the cake where it meets the tin. Tip cake upside-down onto your hand or a plate and bang the top hard. Squeeze the sides a little if it doesn't come out. If it's really stuck, tip right way up again and run knife around the edge once more, this time wiggling the knife a little so the edges pull away from the tin. Tip upside-down and commence banging and squeezing. If you're lucky, it'll come out with very little damage. If a lot breaks off and stays stuck in the tin, you have three possibilities: a) you didn't wait long enough and the cake was too hot; b) you waited too long and the cake was too cold; or c) you didn't use enough butter when you greased the tin. Nothing you can do about it now, but you'll know next time.

10) Eat whatever's left in the tin.

11) Wash strawberries. Remove stalks, cut in half.

12) Either let your cake cool or serve it hot. Stick strawberries on top of cake, add vanilla ice cream or whippy aerosol cream or pouring cream or some variation thereof. You could even beat your cream (if it's double cream - this does not work with single cream or whippy cream) if you want. I like mine with ice cream and a squirt of whippy cream.

13) Hide from your nephews before they eat the entire thing.


For more information on high-altitude cooking, go here - http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/culinaryfundamentals/a/highaltcooking.htm  .

See anything you liked? Share it! Just link back to this page.

Recipes - Tuna-Pasta Salad

Tuna-Pasta Salad

WARNING: Must be made the day before you plan to eat it!

Ingredients:

1 can John West tuna chunks in sunflower oil (234)

1/2 medium onion (23)

1/4 cucumber (11)

2 tbsp Hellman's mayonnaise (180)

300g (dry weight) farfalle pasta (1071)

1/4 tsp dried oregano (1)


Method:

1) Cook pasta until as preferred. I like it soft (but not soggy) for this recipe; you may prefer al dente (firm).

2) Drain tuna. Press out as much oil as possible without cutting your fingers on the can.

3) Pick over the tuna to remove the black scaly bits. Only necessary if you're a fusspot like me.

4) Dice veg. Size is not really important, although I usually make 0.5cm x 0.5cm chunks.

5) Chuck everything in a bowl. Mix around.

6) Season with salt and pepper as needed.

7) Cover and leave in fridge overnight. This is very important. It doesn't taste right if you eat it the day you make it. I suppose you could probably get away with making it early morning and eating it for a late dinner, but I'd strongly suggest making the day before.

Serves 4...or one person four times. :) 380 calories a serving (according to My Fitness Pal).

You can reduce calories (a bit) by using tuna in spring water instead of oil and light mayonnaise. I don't like light mayo, and am allergic to most kinds of tuna, which is why I've specified the ones I have. You can use any brand, though.

You can also mess around with ingredient quantities. I often use less pasta and two cans of tuna / twice the veggies if I feel like I need more protein and vitamins. I think it's yummier with less pasta, personally, but it does make it quite a bit more expensive, and I'm on a budget. As this recipe stands, it costs about £4 / $8 - so £1 / $2 a serving.

Christmas Recipes - Muddy Orgasm (Sati's Christmas Cocktails)

A signature cocktail from my bartending days. Sorry there's no photos - my cupboard is bare, and I don't have anyone to buy alcohol for so it seems silly to waste the money. I'll add a picture in the future if I remember.

Ingredients*:

1 shot vodka
1 shot amaretto / disaronno
1 shot Kahlua
2 shots Baileys
Double or single cream
Cinnamon or powdered chocolate

Equipment:

1 glass, any size (if larger than 250ml, you'll need to scale up)
1 cocktail shaker (optional)
2 tablespoons
1 straw (optional)

Method:

1) Measure 1 shot each of vodka, amaretto and Kahlua and mix well using cocktail shaker. Decant into your glass.

2) Measure out 2 shots of Baileys. Holding a cold, clean, dry tablespoon above the glass (but as far inside as you can get without touching the contents), gently pour the Baileys over the mixed spirits. If you do this gently enough, you'll end up with two distinct layers of colour.

3) Repeat step 2, using second tablespoon (cold, clean, dry) and cream until the glass is as full as you wish. You should now have three layers, going from darkest (bottom) to lightest (top).

4) Dust with cinnamon or powdered chocolate.

5) Mix if around you want, now that you've presented it nicely. Or don't. I personally like the three separate tastes.

6) Get extremely merry and drunk so you don't worry about the fact that you just consumed a third of your day's calorie ration, give or take.

You're welcome. Merry Christmas.

*Substitutions: other cream liqueurs work in the place of Baileys - Amarula gives it a nice fruity twist. Tia Maria or gingerbread syrup can replace Kahlua - I make one with Amarula and gingerbread syrup called a Frosty Orgasm. :) Vodka can be left out, although I prefer to include it.

French Apple Cobbler

(Sorry about the poor-quality picture - unless it's really sunny outside, there's virtually no light in my house, except my bedroom.)


I'm not sure where this recipe came from - my Mom's friend Bernadette, maybe. Mom's been making it for a quarter of a century.

You need:

Ingredients (topping):

~ 1 cup all-purpose flour (UK users, use plain. Also, a US cup is a little bigger than an English one - about 2/3 of a standard British mug.)
~ 1 cup sugar (I'm an unrefined person, but white works fine, although it's not quite as sweet.)
~ 1 tsp baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 4 tbsp butter
~ 2 eggs

Ingredients (filling):

~ 2 large Bramley apples. (We use Bramleys. Proper French people use dessert apples, since they don't really have sour apples over there. You can use dessert apples, or actually any apples, but use a little less sugar if you're not using cooking apples.)
~ 3/4 cup sugar
~ 2 tbsp flour
~ 1/2 tsp cinnamon
~ 1/4 tsp salt
~ 1 tsp vanilla
~ 1/4 cup water

Equipment:

~ 1 chopping board
~ 1 peeler
~ 2 large bowls
~ 1 small bowl
~ 1 electric mixer OR 1 french whisk and 1 wooden spoon
~ 1 sieve
~ 1 spatula
~ 1 cobbler dish. You can use anything made of ceramic or pyrex - lasagne dishes work well - but it should be about 2 inches deep. You can use deeper if you need, but you have to double the cooking time.

Method:

1 ) Fill your first large bowl with water, and add a couple pinches of salt. (This will pull out any bugs in your apples, and keep them from going too brown.)
2 ) Peel and chop apples into slices. (Thin slices or chunky slices - it's nice either way.) Put the apple slices in the bowl of water.
3 ) Mix all filling ingredients (except apples) in small bowl.
4 ) Add sliced apples and mix around until all slices are coated with filling.
5 ) Beat egg in other large bowl. Add all the other topping ingredients, sifting flour as you add it.
6 ) Lightly grease your cobbler dish. Doesn't need to be as heavy as you'd do for a cake, since you're not expecting it to come out of there in one piece. You can get away with not greasing it if you have a dishwasher.
7 ) Pour apples and filling into cobbler dish. Dot topping around on the top, using the spatula. Don't worry too much if it doesn't cover perfectly.
8 ) Bake at #6-7 for 35-40 minutes.

Makes one large cobbler, which is good eaten hot or cold (although I like it hot), with cream or ice cream or just on its own.

Waffle Sundae

I was having such an awful time today, what with insomnia last night - I haven't slept in thirty-six hours now - and pain that I couldn't shake off, I gave up on the idea of salad for lunch, and had waffles with ice cream, banana and cinnamon sugar.


I know you're jealous. It's OK, you can admit it. 'Cause I have the recipe here. It's actually fairly healthy - more so if you use low-fat ice cream or frozen yoghurt, and make your own waffles - and so easy even Wayne Rooney couldn't fuck it up.




Ingredients - for the waffle batter:


~ 125g butter or vegetable spread
~ 150g sugar (I use unrefined for just about everything, but any kind of sugar except powdered should be OK, depending on your tastes)
~ 250g plain flour
~ 1 cup (250ml) milk
~ 3 large eggs
~ 1tsp baking powder
~ OPTIONAL: 1tsp vanilla extract
~ OPTIONAL: juice from one lemon


NOTE: Please bear in mind this recipe is to serve 6. That's 6 fairly large eaters. You can freeze the extra batter for up to two months though, which is what I usually do, or refrigerate it for two days. It's easier than trying to scale down, unless math is your thing.




Ingredients - for the fixin's:


~ Vanilla ice cream
~ 1 banana per person
~ Ground cinnamon
~ A sprinkling of brown sugar (just a teeny bit - or leave it out if you want)


Alternatively you can swap the cinnamon and sugar for maple syrup, or chocolate sauce. I'll give you a recipe for chocolate sauce at a later date, I don't like the ones that come out of tubes.




Equipment:


~ 1 set of scales
~ 1 mixing bowl
~ 1 sieve
~ 1 cup (that's an American cup - about 2/3 of an average British mug)
~ 1 teaspoon
~ 1 waffle iron
~ 1 balloon whisk
~ 1 ice cream scoop
~ 1 serving bowl
~ 1 spoon to eat with




Method:


1 ) Measure out dry ingredients and chuck together in mixing bowl, sifting flour as you go.


2 ) Add wet ingredients.


3 ) Whisk together until you have a runny batter.


4 ) Lightly grease your waffle iron (or don't, if it's non-grease) and heat up.


5 ) Gently spoon batter into iron. Don't overfill, it rises a bit, although not a huge lot.


6 ) Cook until golden. Or a bit more brown if you prefer.


7 ) Place waffles on the bottom of serving bowl. Top with ice-cream, banana and cinnamon sugar.


If you don't have a waffle iron, or don't like to cook, you can use pre-made waffles from the supermarket - just make sure to get the sweet or plain ones instead of the salted ones. If this is the way you're playing it, you get to skip steps 1-6, lucky you.


See - idiot-proof, and it's really good!

Flat Blueberry Scones

[The recipe called these blueberry diggles, but several people commented on that being a dirty name, although they didn't explain why.]

Found these in a garden center catalogue, and Mom made them this afternoon, and they're fabulous! And easy as anything to make. :)

You need:

- 85g / 3oz fresh blueberries

- 85g / 3oz butter or margarine

- 225g / 8oz self-raising flour (in US, cake flour)

- 85g / 3oz caster sugar (I use unrefined, although white is OK - and if you can't get caster, granulated works alright, although it comes out a bit gritty.)

- 1 egg

- 1 tbsp granulated sugar (optional)

Equipment:

- 1 medium-sized bowl

- 1 scales

- 1 wooden spoon

- 1 baking sheet

- 1 small bowl

- 1 french whisk

Method:

1 ) Preheat oven to 200 C / 400 F / Gas Mark 6.

2 ) Rinse blueberries. Stir in granulated sugar if you're using it.

3 ) In small bowl, beat egg.

4 ) In medium bowl, rub butter into flour. Add caster sugar, and make a well in the center.

5 ) Pour egg into well. Mix together well until you have a nice dough.

6 ) Break dough into small pieces and roll into balls around the size of a large walnut. Place onto a greased baking tray and squish down a little bit. Make a small dent in the center of each ball and spoon in four or five blueberries.

7 ) Bake for 12 - 15 minutes, or until golden.

Should make about 12, although you can make them a bit bigger or smaller if you like. (If you do, adjust baking time accordingly.)